COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Boise State did what it needed to do Tuesday night at Air Force – blow out a bad team to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes alive and set up a potentially special night on Friday.
Five players scored in double figures and Boise State led by as many as 35 points in a dominant 80-57 road win at Clune Arena.
The win was the fifth in a row for the Broncos and the ninth in their last 10 games as they surge towards the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble with one regular season game remaining.
After struggling to barely beat a bad Fresno State team on the road on Saturday, the Broncos made sure to not have a similar script on Tuesday. After falling behind 8-2 early the Broncos ripped off a 36-13 run to end the half with a 17-point lead and poured it on in the second half for their first double-digit road win of the season.
“It was a good win,” senior Alvaro Cardenas told BNN. “The team had a great effort. … It was really good. These games aren’t easy. You have to come prepared and not overlook anybody. I think we learned our lesson the other day at Fresno. Anything could have happened in that game. We did a really good job of preparing.”
Cardenas had 13 points, five rebounds and six assists – surpassing 200 assists on the season in the process. He’s just the ninth player in Mountain West history to have at least 200 assists in a single season.
Freshman Pearson Carmichael had 14 points and seven rebounds and Andrew Meadow added 14 points of his own for the Broncos, who also got 11 points from Tyson Degenhart and 10 points from O’Mar Stanley.
RJ Keene had five points and 10 rebounds off the bench for Boise State, which had a 41-32 edge on the glass and a 24-8 advantage in made free throws.
Boise State led 37-21 at the break and used a 21-8 run in the second half to take a 30-point lead midway through. The Broncos pushed the lead to 78-43 with 4:57 to go before emptying the bench to preserve minutes for their starters ahead of Friday’s regular season finale vs. Colorado State.
Air Force ended the game on a 14-2 run to cut the final margin to 23, but the win still helped Boise State jump up five spots to No. 44 at KenPom after the Broncos entered as 15-point favorites.
“The score didn’t really show what the game was like,” Cardenas said.
Boise State won despite shooting just 42.4 percent from the field – including just 24 percent from 3-point range. The Broncos held Air Force to 39.2 percent from the field.
Air Force, which nearly upset San Diego State at home earlier this season, dropped to 4-26 overall and just 1-18 in Mountain West play.
“To be up on the road by 35 with five minutes to go – that’s 35 great minutes,” coach Leon Rice said.
Boise State could enhance its NCAA Tournament resume with a Quad 2 win against Colorado State on Friday. But the Rams have won six in a row and also are surging onto the bubble themselves. A win would certainly help the Broncos’ chances of making the Big Dance, but they’ve already got bigger goals for next week in Las Vegas.
“We want to win the Mountain West Tournament,” Cardenas said. “We win the tournament, three games in three days, then we don’t have to worry about the bubble or anything like that.”
The winner of the conference tournament in Las Vegas gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. And the Broncos got a nice boost when UNLV beat San Diego State late Tuesday night. Suddenly a win over the Rams and the Broncos would be the No. 2 seed in the Mountain West Tournament.
It makes for a massive game on Friday night at 8 p.m. It’s Senior Night – and the final home games for Degenhart, Cardenas and Stanley – and is already sold out. It should be one of the best atmospheres in recent memory.
And the Broncos will enter The X on Friday with plenty of momentum after a dominant road win at Air Force.
“We made it look easy,” Rice said. “But we didn’t approach it that it was going to be easy. Our guys had a great mentality tonight. … We’re going to have to play a great game Friday because Colorado State is playing great.”
Bronco Nation News had live interviews with coach Leon Rice, Alvaro Cardenas and Pearson Carmichael on the Jacksons Postgame Show from courtside at Clune Arena. Watch the Show on the BNN YouTube channel here:
